Once they're gone, they're gone

First off, let me begin by thanking everyone who came out to the Thursday night show...and even those who meant to make it, but ran out of time. The show went really well, and except for me getting a little tipsy and spilling my drink, I also managed to hold it together, and (I think) talk articulately about the new work...where it's coming from and how I hope to proceed.

However, this isn't meant to be a lauditory post to stroke my ego, I want to bring the issue of proposed neighborhood destruction to your attention (especially if you live in Riverside. My friend David White (who is also a realtor with integrity) forwarded the following link to me. Here's an excerpt:

"Riverside may lose the last remnants of the historic Riverside Clinic and Riverside Hospital if a local developer follows through on plans for a drive-through pharmacy.

That has preservationists upset, especially because they say they were not made aware of the project.

"I can wholeheartedly say there's no way we would support the demolition of those buildings," said Carmen Godwin, executive director of the nonprofit Riverside Avondale Preservation Inc. "It would be a devastating loss."

In March, the city issued a concurrency statement to Renaissance at Riverside Inc. saying that the city's infrastructure, such as utilities and traffic, would be able to handle the developer's proposal to build a pharmacy after demolishing a historic office building and nearby house.

The two properties - the Jelks Building, a three-story, tan brick building; and a two-story Prairie School brick house on Margaret Street - are across the street from Memorial Park next to the Villas of St. Johns apartment complex, and across Riverside Avenue from the Publix-anchored Riverside Market Square."

Read the rest here, including how the developer received incentives from the city, and tried to sneak this through without RAP's knowledge.

Here's a link to City Council, and as soon as I find out the person/people to whom one should direct ire, I'll post that info here.

I will also post pictures of the property later.

Weekend Adventure...

This weekend was really fruitful for me, if you count afternoon naps and light shopping among constructive endeavors.

Actually, I was more active than the above-sentence might suggest. On Saturday I rode my bike over to the Riverside Art Market where I used Matt’s/BikeJax’s Bike Valet Service. It is such a smart way to effectively utilize the space, while letting people feel secure about their “steeds.” *Sidebar, when I was a kid, I used to pretend that my bright-red 10-speed was really a horse…now, slightly more steeped in bike culture (well, at least I read the blogs) I find out this is a fairly common occurrence…

But enough of my maundering; after arriving at the market, I wandered around for a good hour or so, just kind of absorbing the vibe and seeing how everything worked. And I must say, it seems to be a success…I will be curious to hear about how the artists themselves do, but the ancillary booths seemed to be doing a brisk business and everyone I ran into that I knew seemed to be smiling…

Overall, I hope the RAM serves to elevate the visibility of the arts in Jacksonville, and in so doing, contribute to a culture where the value of the arts aren’t just given lip service, but instead help to create a community where the arts are more viable for artists themselves.

That being said, I’d like to remind myself and others of what Jim Draper (gosh I seem to be quoting him a lot) once told a roomful of aspiring artists: that only 20% of his market was here in Jacksonville, the rest are much further afield.

Interestingly, a few of the vendors that really caught my eye were those using humble materials and transforming them…but these thoughts I’m developing into a more articulate article for EU…look for it in the May issue.

After RAM, I went to check out the Tilly Fowler Memorial sculpture being installed just behind the YMCA, on the Riverwalk in Riverside. I am still not sure that I love the piece, but I do support a greater proliferation of public art in our city…

Then later on this weekend, I found myself at my friend’s suburban home near the beach, watching a troupe of usually articulate friends hurl themselves down a hill, into a retension pond…though I was tempted, I resisted…it was like stank, kamikaze, slip-n-slide...

*and finally, the picture of my dog is taken from my recent Santa Fe trip, we were out hiking in the Sangre de Christo mountains, and the shot, taken on my trusty cell phone pleases me to no end.

Maxhouse

Just a few brief words on the Peter Max madhouse this weekend at R. Roberts Gallery: Incidentally, the above two pictures were shot while the cops weren’t looking, and right afterwards I was told, “no pictures please.”

But moving on, for my day job, I write at a local arts magazine, and this time around, one of my assignments was to interview Peter Max. He is, I am happy to say, one of the nicest men it’s even been my pleasure to speak with. The impact of his work aside (which one may or may not like), he truly believes in the tenant of compassion, living and working within a framework of belief that calls for him to honor his own body and contribute to the community as a whole.

So it was with curiosity and a little bit of trepidation that I headed up to the gallery on Sunday (even at the museum opening I overheard people talking about Peter Max). The place was packed; there was a line out the door for people who wanted to get things signed, and there was another line of people who’d just purchased things and were getting them signed, along with a photo of the artist (I guess that’s why there was a “no pictures” policy…silly and a little capitalist, but perhaps necessary to control the crowd…draw your own conclusions).

It was an interesting intersection of fine art and commerce, of celebrity and artist, and the approapriatness of it all. Yet perhaps this is just the organic outcome of a lifetime spent hanging out with celebrities and celebrity artists (one imagines Warhol would embrace it as the natural order), and of a culture that seeks to validuate itself through contact with these notables, even if it is only fleeting and peripheral. The only time I’ve seen something similar was when Frank Stella came to town. People mobbed him and asked him to pose for pictures too.

As to the aesthetic value of Max's work, unarguably it evokes a specific time and mindset, which, although I can’t relate to, seemed certainly to heighten the spirits of a certain generation…I can honestly say I don’t think I’ve ever been to an opening where more people were smiling.

At that point, whether or not one bitter scribe aesthetically agrees with the work at hand becomes a moot point. Time to relax and be happy for everyone else.

Dreaming of Black Mountain

This weekend I spent some time with a friend of mine, he’s an artist and a professor, and where I tend to be didactic, he sees the humanity in just about everyone. It’s a good lesson to remember; it is easy to slide down a slippery slope into absolutism…especially when dealing with art and artists.

Also this weekend, Dreaming of Black Mountain opened at the Jane Gray gallery in Riverside/Brooklyn. Featuring the work of Kurt Polkey and Morrison Pierce, the name alone raised questions of what it means to be a part of an artistic community. So, I eagerly anticipated the work…and I was curious about the place where the artists’ work would intersect, as they are friends, and in the past have been studio-mates.

Both artists are making work that addresses the art scene in Jacksonville, and both artists have invested in a curiously precious sort of anti-art aesthetic. Pierce’s works, in paint and sculpture share an ethos with that former “bad-boy” of Jacksonville: Lee Harvey. Using crafty materials—a play-do-esque clay, bacon bags, and children’s guns, Pierce’s work made the kind of glaringly obvious points that Harvey once sought to make with his work.

Two pieces leap to mind, “Jacksonville Art Prison,” and another work (whose name I can’t recall) that featured a tiny graveyard outside of an office. The work was about the grinding numbness that office workers inevitably experience. When asked if he is, in fact, an office worker, Pierce answered with a kind of über cool hauteur, that no, he wasn’t. And offered no further illumination.

Polkey’s works vacillated between paired-down, oversized paintings and tiny, tiny, drawings. The larger works, especially those of horses, draw heavily on Susan Rothenburg’s works, and, closer to home—the works of Tod Murphy that were recently exhibited at MOCA.

His landscape, with the word “landscape” stencilled across the sky, recalls Ruscha’s series, “Course of an Empire” which were themselves, related to Tomas Cole’s “Course of Empire.” Cole was the founder of the Hudson River School, and perhaps that is why Polkey chose to paint his landscape with a blue-yellow sky and tobacco/sepia earth. Perhaps too, it explains the decision to shoot the video installation accompanying the show in tones and tints of high yellow as well.

Elephant Walk

Topiary is quirky; reminiscent of fussy English garden-parties and arch witticisms exchanged over glasses of Pims.

Located on the corner of Osceola and Ernest, there’s an elephant sprouting from the ground. At first glance it seems like a fortuitous mishap; yard trash piled together and with a trick of light, an elephant appears. However, after close observation, it’s obvious that this is a deliberate project on the part of the homeowner.

Subtle, and one assumes somewhat spontaneous, this expression of whimsy and care might begin to capture the spirit of an age that is (hopefully) looking forward to a more responsible stewardship of natural resources and the environment. Crafted of renewable resources, and requiring minimal tending, the topiary elephant is more than a nod to centuries of British tea-parties. It obliquely exemplifies the ways in which humanity can work against the earth and with it—and whether this is a conscious or unconscious gesture, it doesn’t really matter. Plus, the elephant is so out-of-context as to be delightful.